Pentagon to recommend 1 percent pay raise for troops in 2014

1:47 PM,
Feb. 7, 2013

Leon Panetta

Written by

Andrew Tilghman
Military Times

The Pentagon will formally recommend that troops next year should receive a 1 percent increase in basic pay, which would be the smallest pay bump in the 40-year history of the all-volunteer force.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Military Times Wednesday that the proposed 1 percent raise for 2014 - a drop from previously stated plans for a 1.7 percent raise next year - is a cost-cutting measure to help the Defense Department meet the budget goals that Congress set in 2011. He noted that the Defense Department's personnel costs have grown by 80 percent in the past decade.